TMann Posted February 1, 2008 Posted February 1, 2008 I got some new toys that I'm working with while I'm preparing for my DIY glass panel (through the inspiration of Al Wick.) Last Week: Marc had posted some info about the www.findmespot.com hand held GPS beacon. (Thank you Marc. Best safety tip of the year so far!) After the Fossett incident of last September, I thought it was worth a shot. I can activate the beacon, set it on the dash of the rent-a-spam-can and it posts my position online every 10 minutes. In the event that I go down there is a distress (9-1-1) mode I can activate. Worst case scenario, if I couldn't activate the distress function, I should be found within a 10 minute radius of my last plotted position. That limits the search area with or without a flight plan. This thing is so accurate, it even plotted which ruway exit I took upon landing (then overlaid that info on google earth.) This Week: My newest toy is a GPS antenna & laptop sofware from www.anywheremap.com which I'm just getting installed on my laptop now. I spoke with another pilot who is very happy with the system so I'm excited to see for myself. I'm told it has the full flight planning software and lots of other good stuff. It plots a circle around your location to indicate how far you can glide if you had an engine out incident. The software will eventually reside in my onboard computer (MINI-ITX 12v system) and will feed a planar touchscreen monitor in the panel. I have my PLC from Automation Direct and am in the process of wiring up some simulated input (switches, sensors etc.) so I can start making some progress there. Something to do while the epoxy cures. It should prove to be an interesting project within my project. Quote T Mann - Loooong-EZ/20B Infinity R/G Chpts 18 Velocity/RG N951TM Mann's Airplane Factory We add rocket's to everything! 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9, 10, 14, 19, 20 Done
jeff122670 Posted February 1, 2008 Posted February 1, 2008 if you really want to see something neat, check out this link: http://www.berkut13.com/aprs.htm incredible system!!! and actually not to hard to make and use. enjoy, Jeff Quote
TMann Posted February 1, 2008 Author Posted February 1, 2008 yeah, a fixed solution such as that would be nice but it will have to wait until my bird is closer to flying. Most of what I'm dealing with now is both portable and transferable to my onboard computer. I'm sure that more options will exist between now and then. AnywhereMap also has an XM Weather upgrade I can incorporate in the future plus the plates of airports (approaches, runways, comm etc.) I really hate dealing with paper while I'm flying. Quote T Mann - Loooong-EZ/20B Infinity R/G Chpts 18 Velocity/RG N951TM Mann's Airplane Factory We add rocket's to everything! 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9, 10, 14, 19, 20 Done
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